Vintage LED is thrilled to announce that we will be appearing at Decor + Design, Australia’s premier interior design trade show. Decor + Design will be held at the historic Melbourne Exhibition Centre from 16 – 19 July, 2015.

Décor + Design provides a wonderful opportunity for industry professionals and exhibitors to network, swap ideas and discuss new products and trends. Vintage LED will be showcasing a range of our newest and popular bulbs, including the Diamond Filament, the A165 Giant Teardrop and G125 Trilateral filament.

Entry is free, but restricted. Since this is a trade show, and not for the general public, all visitors must be a verifiable member of the furniture and soft-furnishing industry, and over 16 years of age. Pre-registration can be done online here. You can also register upon arrival.

Once you're in, please drop by the Vintage LED stall, have a chat, and check out some of our wonderful range of bulbs and accessories. We’ll be at Stand I37.

Research into Retail lighting suggests that a bright everywhere approach may not be the best an encouraging customers to feel comfortable when they make a purchase. We probably all know the 7-Eleven effect when everything is lit in the whitest possible light - a definite shock to the system.

A relatively inexpensive and efficient way to include this warm contrast is to include Vintage LED in your shop design. Please get in touch if you would like a product demonstration of Vintage LED Retail lighting options.

VintageLED are proudly Melbournian. We love our single origin in a chic cafe in the morning and multi-course degustation with matching sommelier chosen beverage in a fine diner in the evening. A great article recently published in Broadsheet highlighted the ubiquitous nature of the cafe and restaurant design in Melbourne...

"Polished timber, white tiling, Edison light bulbs. Once innovative, these familiar elements are now ubiquitous to the point of parody in Melbourne’s cafes and restaurants.

But there are reasons why they have been so widely embraced in Melbourne and elsewhere. As Paul Hecker explains, it’s a look that works well day and night; it’s casual and warm; it suggests history and appeals to a sense of nostalgia.

It even makes the customer look good, as the warm yellow glow of an Edison bulb is more flattering than an LED. And practically, the materials are inexpensive and easy to access."

The focus of the article was the copy cat nature of project developers and the design features they chose, but one of the key design elements - carbon filament Edison light bulbs have inadvertently increased energy consumption across the city. Every cafe that used to have half a dozen twirly CFL light bulbs has been redesigned and re-invigorated to include 20, 40 or even 60 hanging light bulbs - given the fact that many Carbon filament light bulbs put out about the same amount of light as a candle - if you have a large space you need more.

Now we agree that the ambience created by the glow of these lights is warming and flattering to us as customers, no one likes to sit under a blue light to eat and drink. But every day when all the cafe, restaurants and bars open and all these lights get switched on - lets say 5,000 maybe at 40W each - that alone is more electricity than one 200W unit at Hazlewood Coal fired power in the LaTrobe valley can supply.

So maybe when super warm Vintage LEDs are available its time to stop the boys shovelling so much coal?

Vintage LED is happy to announce that we will be at The Big Design Market, which runs over this weekend (December 5, 6, 7) in Melbourne. The Big Design Market is Australia’s biggest, well, design market, hosted in the stunning and historic Royal Exhibition Building.

As you might know one of the reasons we started Vintage LED was to provide a better quality feature light. We has been using Carbon Filament but these lights just don't last, you need to keep a stash or have a regular supplier if you have a large area to light and the power bills really add up if you have them on all day. Vintage LED filament have very few of these problems - they last longer, and don't need to be replaced and they are not even noticeable on your energy bill, even if you leave them on all day every day.

What we love now is the different in the aesthetics between our Vintage LED filament and the old carbon filament. Below is a couple of pictures one of our new ST64 Long Filament and an ST64 Carbon filament (on the left). We may be biased but we think ours looks better. In fact, the LED technology allows for a whole lot of different designs - standby for some more updates on our new products coming in April!

Vintage LED was born out of necessity, a passion for cool lighting and a commitment to environmental sustainability and carbon reduction. We are excited about providing a genuine alternative to the old-school light bulb.

The reality is that traditional incandescent bulbs guzzle energy and don't last long; they’re as efficient as you’d expect a nineteenth century technology to be. The latest LED bulbs, however, use only a fraction of the power, and look fantastic while doing it.

Naturally, we understand people use traditional incandescent bulbs because they look really good, especially those near-ubiquitous retro Edison filament numbers. In fact, we used to use those ourselves.

A few years ago we needed to solve a lighting problem in an old bank in Northcote, Melbourne. We found that the ideal solution was a fancy array of carbon filament light bulbs. We thought they looked fantastic, so we installed 30 of them. (Amble along any inner-city cafe strip, and you'll see plenty of businesses that have taken the same plunge.)

Sadly, we found the light they provided was inconsistent, they kept blowing and they were very expensive to run. (That cafe-strip amble will also reveal a dark constellation of blown and unreplaced bulbs.) We began searching for alternatives, and soon realised we weren't the only ones. Vintage LED was created to service that need.

What really surprised us was the extent of the savings that can be achieved. Most people who spruik a 25-40% return on investment are probably peddling snake oil, but that has honestly been our experience, and it’s not all that difficult to work out why. After all, calculating energy costs is really just simple maths.

As everyone is different, we wanted customers to be able to accurately see how much they could save, so we built an energy Savings Calculator into our website. (Again, it's basic maths – power used per hour x your kWh rate.) We encourage you to check it out.

Vintage LED offers a selection of lights and fittings to fit the contemporary retail, café, restaurant or home. At its core is the idea that lighting should be functional, warm, efficient and beautiful. We believe our products compromise on none of these things, and we’re sure you’ll agree. Please check out our Collection.

To make it easy for you we have put together some pendant + light bulb kits that you can simply purchase and install (with the help of a licensed electrician) to upgrade or put the finishing touches to your design. See our Pendant Kits here.

If you want to design your own lighting solutions we have a selection of accessories for you to choose from. See our Accessories.

Vintage LED offers a full, no-questions-asked two year warranty. You don't even have to send us the globe, just send us a picture, and we'll send you a replacement. These bulbs are rated for 10,000+ hours, after all!

Did you know that the Australian building industry now has fairly strict requirements when it comes to lighting in residential and commercial premises? This provides yet another reason why LED lighting is a great solution.

In May 2011, the Building Code of Australia (BCA) drastically increased the restrictions on the amount of lighting you are permitted in a new building, especially as regards energy consumption. This was part of a broader push to drastically improve the energy efficiency of all new Australian premises (including six star energy efficiency ratings for residential premises).

Whereas buildings were previously allowed 25W of lighting per square metre, this was reduced to just 5W per square metre indoors. This falls to 4W per square metre on verandas and 3W in garages.

It begs the question of how all those premises running energy-guzzling tungsten filament Edison globes manage to conform to the regulations. The answer is that many probably don’t. However, it should also be stressed that the regulations take into account the total output for the building - you can in theory run a searchlight in your loungeroom if the rest of the house is dark. It also helps if the searchlight is dimmable.

There are some exceptions and workarounds. The restrictions are relaxed if you use dimmers or motion detectors. Furthermore, the regulations do not factor in non-permanent light fittings such as lamps, so long as they aren’t directly wired. Further details can be found in the Australian Building Code Board’s Lighting Calculator.

Initial fears that these new rules would reduce society to twilit gloom proved unfounded. Interiors today are just as bright after sundown as they’ve ever been. In fact, they have to be. This is because whilst the BCA severely limited the wattage per square metre allowance, no change was made to the Australian Standards Lux Levels.

Lux (or illuminance) basically equates to light intensity on a given surface, and its requirements vary depending on context. For example a ground floor corridor has a much lower Lux requirement than, say, a food preparation area, let alone a cricket field. A rough guide to the Australian Standard Lux Levels can be found here.

By leaving these Lux requirements in place, whilst reducing the permitted wattage per square metre, the ABCB forced builders and owners to be far more efficient in the choice of lighting solutions.

LED bulbs, such as those sold by Vintage LED, produce more than ample light whilst only drawing a fraction of the power of your traditional incandescents.

To pick an example, Vintage LED's G125 SpaceLED draws only 3W yet pumps out 450lm, which is more than a 40W incandescent bulb, or a 10W compact fluorescent. It also looks a lot better, produces a lovely warm white light, and lasts for years. String a few of these up and you’ll enjoy ample lighting and never come close to hitting the BCA’s lighting restrictions.

For those keen to conform to the letter of the code, and perhaps more importantly to honour the spirit of it – i.e. reducing energy usage – LED globes are the ideal way to go. With LED Edison globes you’ll achieve fantastic lighting, save money, and save energy, too.

Vintage LED is thrilled to announce that we are now supplying LED lighting solutions to the iconic Wye River General Store (WRGS). Those who’ve been there won’t need to be told how good this place is, while those who haven’t should make their business to find out immediately. Seriously, go now: we'll wait.

You're back? Excellent. Those with a keen eye might have noticed that Wye River General Store has 25 light-fittings in its main café / restaurant space. Previously these were filled with 25W halogen bulbs, as part of the original architect brief.

Halogen bulbs, let it be said, are a fine product in their own right. Unfortunately they are not efficient and have a poor life expectancy, needing to be replaced every 1500hrs or so.

The primary issue for WRGS was the cost of running halogen bulbs, including frequent replacement. They were regularly failing. When it comes to cafes, old tap fittings can seem quaint and peeling paint might be atmospheric, but blown light bulbs rarely promote the right look. There was also the cost of replacing them all the time. Halogen bulbs are per-unit cheaper than LEDs, but not when you’re constantly buying more of them.

WRGS now uses 3W Vintage Edison LED bulbs supplied by Vintage LED. These not only look better - a subjective opinion, but one we share - they also draw significantly less power. This translates into significant savings to both energy and cost, especially since energy costs are typically higher in regional areas than in metropolitan areas.

Using the handy Usage Calculator on the Vintage LED website, we worked out that over the first three years after switching, WRGS will save more than 50% of their total lighting costs. The initial outlay for the LED bulbs will be recouped within one year.

Don't forget that WRGS were previously using highly efficient halogen bulbs. If they'd been using those ubiquitous vintage carbon filament Edison bulbs now installed in just about every Melbourne cafe, the savings would have been far higher.

So now this beautiful café, to which food-lovers flock from near and far, has a lighting solution worthy of it's stunning location. They look better and cost less, whilst being better for the Earth. Furthermore, since LED bulbs last for many years, WRGS doesn't have to worry about the cost and hassle of constantly replacing them.

We also highly recommend their donuts, and the crew are nice dudes to boot.